Bloke on the Water!

'Aagh! A whale! A whale!' screams Captain Hans Hohenlohe pointing wildly from his position at the stern of the newly re-christened Centennial Sparrow.
'No sir', interjects the ship's freshly appointed quartermaster, Crispin Drei. 'That'd be a boat'. He pauses, and then, since he is now a pirate, adds an 'Aaaar!' to create the right sort of ambience.
'A boat? A boat?' says Hohenlohe looking confused.
'A pirate boat it is', says Lars Yerda, the first mate, in his appalling German.
'How do you know that it's a pirate boat?' asks Hohenlohe.
'Because, sir, it be our boat. Aaaar!' comments the quartermaster.
'Ooooh' says Hohenlohe peering ahead. 'So it is. How did I make such a silly mistake?'
'Well, sir', says Drei, 'I'm thinking that yer consumption of two bottles of rum might have been at least loosely connected to yer error'.
Yerda nods. 'Tipped to the rits you are', he comments with his garbled vocabulary.
'And also', continues Drei, 'it's quite difficult to see ahead given how crowded our ship be. Aaaaar!'

(Below) And in truth, the boat is indeed quite crowded. Hohenlohe's choice of such a diminutive vessel had at its core a perfectly reasonable supposition: that, for a crew whose lives had been spent as vagrants, vagabonds, draft animals, or professional spitoons, the intricacies of sailing a sea vessel were likely to be skills best developed from practice on a simpler ship. In actuality, the ship's rats were professionally more qualified for a life at sea than his crew, and they certainly had better table manners. Alas, Hohenlohe had neglected to consider some of the practical implications of trying to squeeze a crew suitable for a sloop or brigantine onto a boat so small that the only reason it can't be labelled a bath tub is that no one in it has any soap.

The rather overloaded condition of the vessel was one of the early problems discovered on this maiden voyage. But other unwelcome discoveries soon followed. The command 'Hoist the main sail', for example, proved difficult to execute when it was concluded that there was in fact no main sail. Or top sail. Or indeed any sail. Or, on that theme, a mast. Morale lowered further when, after spending a short time watching the crew at work, the small family of rats that lived in one corner of the vessel were seen constructing from a fruit basket, stick and handkerchief, a small life boat, which they then launched, in a commendably calm and disciplined process of abandoning ship. Even what should have been the fairly reasonable order, in what was after all basically a large rowing boat, to 'row the boat', foundered like an ill-manned and ill-equipped Vulgarian war boat, on the sharp rocks of the problem that no oars could be found. In addition, it turned out that one of the crew was actually Fenwickian, so that Hohenlohe's command that the crew should 'find some oars and damn well use them' resulted in the crewman fnarring himself overboard.

'Motive power there seems no obvious means to be', comments Yerda.
'What?' replies Hohenlohe.
'Boat not move', says Drei.
'Well, this seems like it is going to be a long voyage', says the captain, gloomily. 'How are we doing?'
'I think', says Drei, 'there be a reason, sir, why row boats use oars and not, as we be doing, spoons'.
'Desert spoons?' asks Hohenlohe hopefully.
'Arrrr, tea spoons they be, sir...'
'Of course. Of bloody course'. The captain pauses. 'Now, I need to bring something up', he continues.
'Our orders and plan this might be?' enquires Yerda with interest.
'No', replies Hohenlohe, 'it's the rum'. He heaves loudly over the side of the ship. In between chunders, he orders everyone below except Yerda.

(Below) 'Thank goodness', says Hohenlohe. 'A bit of space at last. Now, mister Yerda, I can reveal our orders ...'

'Hmmm', interjects Yerda. 'Wet my stockings are'.
'What?' says the captain with cold alarm. 'Have we sprung a leak? Call the men!'
'Below you sent the men', points out Yerda reasonably.
'Yes, I told the men to go below'.
'On this reflecting I am. Boat this is and not a ship. A below I don't think we have'.
'Oh', says Hohenlohe wearily. 'Which, on reflection would explain why they had to saw through the deck ...'
Yerda shrugs. 'Moving we are now'.
'Yes', the captain, 'but I can't help noticing that it's not the required direction'.
'What?' asks Yerda, over the lazy gurgle of water.
'We're moving downwards instead of along'.
'What?'
'Well, Yerda, applying my accumulated experience as a sea captain, I must conclude that, since the boat is getting lower in the water and the water is getting higher, then technically at least, our condition could be coded most accurately as "sinking"'.
'What?'
'Boat sink'.
Yerda lifts one sodden leg, before plunking it back into the water and examining the other. He looks at Hohenlohe and shrugs. 'Soup?'
Hohenlohe rubs his eyes, looking very tired. 'Yes mister Yerda. Let's get the sloop. Break out the spoons and head for the coast ...'